From A to Z
by The Bird Of Fire
Summary: A Tower full of mutants, two mischievous assassins, a few geniuses, an occasionally homesick god and a tribe of errant Roombas is the fitting background to a tale of Bucky Barnes, Darcy Lewis and Steve Roger's journey, from their first meeting to their first time to their first date and more (and yes, those are in the correct order)... From A to Z. (Bucky/Darcy/Steve story)
1. A is for Anticipation

**A is for Anticipation**

* * *

Darcy huffed and perched on the end of her bed. Clothes littered the floor around her, covering the pine boards and fluffy white rug. The resultant mess was one she'd have to clean the minute she got back if she didn't want to risk some of Tony's C-Robots venturing in and going to town. She'd caught them at it just a couple of weeks ago, and while she and her Vine followers had gotten a kick out of it, her Friday night plans hadn't exactly consisted of undressing stubborn, sentient machines.

Though... Darcy wouldn't have to deal with the mess later if she just dealt with it now. Of course, that would mean not going at all… which _would _make things a lot easier in the long run. Sure everything would be good for a while, but the long-term prospects? Nope. Not so great.

Because there was no way this could end well.

Irritated, Darcy collapsed back onto her bed and flung a hand over her eyes. See, this was why she didn't believe in sleeping with her friends. Things always got so complicated when feelings became involved. In the past, she had never been the one to catch the damn things, but now here she was. Friends With Benefits, she'd always believed, was a far easier arrangement when the 'Friend' part was really a 'You're Not Someone Whose Company Outright Disgusts Me' rather than a 'Seeing You is Often the Best Part of My Day'.

And yet, she'd broken her golden rule by fucking two of her closest friends.

_Yep, because that made_so much sense_, Darcy._

But goddamn it, who could blame her? Like, have you _seen _those two?

Now if only 'those two' had just been two of her closest friends and not also two of the most famous people on the planet – or vice versa; things would have probably been a lot easier. But throw in two gorgeous, funny trolls that she just couldn't help but get along with, an environment where she constantly bumped into them, and a friendship she hadn't seen coming and you have a recipe for disaster.

Yep. That was right. Steve Rogers and James 'Bucky' Barnes.

With a groan of disbelief, Darcy sat back up and gazed around her room. The wall sconces gave off a gentle light that did nothing to soothe her rattled nerves, and she was sorely tempted to hurl her remote at the built-in music system that sat in the far wall. She might have loved that song just this morning, but it was irritating the fuck out of her now. Not that she could blame Kanye for her current situation. Nope, this was all her fault.

Well, and Steve and Bucky's, because if anyone was to blame for their general _theirness_, it was those two.

Darcy wasn't exactly a romantic, but nor was she a cynic. Hanging out with Jane and Tony, and Hell, even her happily married parents; she'd _seen _love – _true love_, as Disney would call it. She just knew it was a lot rarer than some people claimed, and that looking for it, or even just venturing into a relationship, ended in disaster more often than not.

That was why she didn't really date, as a general rule. Sure, she'd always figured she'd get married at some point, but that had always seemed a long way off. _Still _seemed a long way off, to be honest. And she most _definitely _didn't fuck or date her friends – asking for trouble, really. Things always seemed to end badly, with one person hurt badly and the relationship often spoiled beyond repair.

Just not worth it, she'd thought.

And yet, she'd chosen to fuck two of her closest friends on a regular enough basis that sooner rather than later…. Well, here she was, wasn't she?

Darcy half-heartedly prodded a pair of denim shorts with her foot. The idea had seemed okay when Bucky had first asked her if she wanted to go out to dinner with them. That had been just last night, and annoyingly enough, he and Steve clearly knew her well, because they'd known to ask her when she was freshly post-orgasm.

_Sneaky bastards._

So, Darcy would probably be well within her rights to cancel. She could just call them now and tell them she'd changed her mind, that they should just keep things the way they were. Don't fix what ain't broke, and all that.

But just as Darcy was reaching for her phone to let the boys know of her change of heart, an image of how they might react tore through her mind._Fuck_. They weren't the sort to really let it show on the outside, but Steve would furrow his brow a little and those blue, _blue _eyes of his would dim…. And Bucky's face would go carefully blank, the kind of blank she hated to see because it reminded her of when she'd first moved into the Tower and he'd still been mostly Soldier, no Barnes, and…

It wouldn't do.

She'd just have to go. She was a big girl, she could handle it. And even when things went south – Darcy's breath caught at the thought of not being able to crash at theirs after a long day, of not having one of them drag her out for coffee on a whim, of not trying (unsuccessfully, because _damn those super-soldier reflexes) _to beat them at Mario Kart….

Well, Darcy would just have to cross that bridge when she came to it, as her mother so often put it. Because there was no way this could last. There was no way this wasn't going to end badly, but that didn't mean that she couldn't enjoy this in the meantime. The friendship was just as good as the sex, and if she had to… in order to keep it, then that's what she'd do.

Darcy grabbed her phone, and yep, she now only had a couple of minutes to actually finish get dressed. She pulled a green wrap dress over her head (and hoped to _Thor_ she hadn't mussed up her hair too badly, because _now she had no time to fix it_), slipped on a pair of strappy high-heels and checked her make-up in the mirror for what had to be the fifth time.

_Knock. Knock._

The oddly hesitant sound of metal knuckles rapping against the door. A cold chill shivered its way down Darcy's spine, and her breath stuttered even as she clenched her fists to help strengthen her resolve. With a deep breath, she turned off the room's main light and walked to the door.

...

...

...

...

..

_This is the first time I've posted something on here in quite some time, so it's a little strange. You can find my other Avengers FFs over on AO3 (same username)._

_This project will be slightly different to them, however, in that I intend to publish a chapter (each containing around 1000 words) every day for the next twenty-six days._

_(But Phee, why 26 chapters? Why 26 days?)_

_Well, in exactly 26 days, AOU is released here in the UK, so when the idea for this story struck me the other day (doing a non-linear story with the alphabet being the only inspiration) , I thought it would be fun to do a little something in celebration of the film's release. So I waited a couple of days so that the final chapter would be released just before I left for the cinema._

_Ah. Good times._

_Anyway, let me know what you think. I'm hoping to have a TBP chapter up within the week, the next BWITC chapter up next Thursday, and the next chapter of this story up tomorrow._

_I'm also currently taking prompts for chapter titles, so if you have any ideas for what B, C, D or E (etc) should be, let me know by giving me one to three word chapter titles/prompts in the comments section._

_As always, it's been a blast._


	2. B is for Boost

**B is for Boost**

* * *

"OOOH. YOU'RE DEAD, CLINT! DO YOU HEAR ME?" Darcy shrieked, glaring angrily at the kitchen ceiling. The sound of manic giggling accompanied the clanging of combat boots making their way through the air vents above Darcy's head. Acting quickly, she grabbed a nearby broom and banged its stick against the ceiling. To no avail, the clanging grew quieter and quieter until it eventually stopped entirely.

Infuriated, Darcy peered into the fridge, hoping that her eyes had just been deceiving her, but no. The glaringly empty space on the middle shelf told her that she had indeed been robbed blind. Darcy angrily propped up the broomstick against the kitchen's central aisle while wondering how best to avenge her missing babies. Clint couldn't be allowed to get away with this.

You see, this wasn't the first time this had happened. It was just the _last _time it would be happening – for more than one reason, as will soon be explained.

When Darcy and Jane had left London for New York several weeks ago, with a few trucks' worth of equipment and a Norse god in tow, they'd also brought along something that had fuelled their all-nighters – Boost. A British energy drink that lesser minds would claim tasted like concentrated urine, Boost had grown on Darcy like a fungus (Jane's words), and she'd insisted they bring several cases along with them when they moved into the Tower. Her addiction (which Darcy thought was a bit of a strong term, but Jane had insisted _really applied here_) had gotten so bad that Darcy no longer used them just to refuel, but rather drank that shit like water.

Unfortunately, after sharing a few with Clint to refuel during a midnight Wii duel, the archer had become just as dependent on them, and when Darcy had threatened to cut him off (he'd started going through her supply like they were about to run out, which, hello? They had been), had taken to sneaking into her room to 'take his share'.

And now we get to the 'more than one reason' for his latest heist being 'the _last_ time'. You see, Darcy had put the very last Boost in her fridge this morning, hoping to enjoy it for lunch. The very last Boost that Clint had just stolen, bouncing in and out of her room like he was on a spring.

And if only for that, Clint had to die – or at least suffer horribly.

Knowing that Clint was most likely headed to the main kitchen to enjoy his ill-gotten spoils, Darcy headed for the elevator. As it climbed the few floors to the common area, she gleefully tossed about ideas for how best to avenge her stolen drinks.

_It has to be something _really _petty. Something he won't notice until it's too late_.

Legos in his shoes?

Cover all the best-before labels in his kitchen with black marker?

Put itching powder in his shampoo?

Rub poison ivy on his sheets?

Just as she was considering how best to obtain some, the elevator came to a quiet standstill, and Darcy burst out of its doors and ran to the kitchen. But rather than finding her nemesis in his self-admitted Second Home, she saw a well-built, dark-haired man finishing up a meal (what was that, anyway? Mashed potato? Porridge? Fuck you, Darcy was hungry) in the farmhouse-style space.

Steve and Bucky had barely said two words to Darcy since she'd moved in, not because they were unfriendly or anything, but because they rarely saw each other. In fact, up until a couple of weeks ago, the two super-soldiers had been on a mission somewhere in Buttfuck, Arkansas, and Darcy had been trying to finish the paperwork for her transfer from King's College to Columbia.

If this had been a cartoon (or had she been a car), Darcy would have screeched to a halt. But as this was Real Life ®, her feet simply stuttered across the floorboards, slipping in her socks. Bucky Barnes, former Howling Commando, the Winter Soldier and American legend, watched in amusement as she flung out a hand and (thankfully) clung to the kitchen's central aisle.

A sigh of relief escaped Darcy before she could find her misplaced dignity, and she laid disbelieving eyes on the Avenger.

"Yeah, yeah," she panted before she could stop herself, "laugh it up, Barnes." A startled laugh was her response, and Darcy watched the cool-as-the-other-side-of-the-pillow man raised a brow.

"Headed somewhere, Lewis?" he asked. Darcy's subconscious asked her how she and _the Winter Soldier _had become people that last-named each other so quickly, while her eyes darted around the room and failed to find her target.

"Looking for Clint, actually. Have you seen him anywhere?"

Bucky stood up from the table, picking up his now-empty plate and cutlery, and crossing over to the sink to rinse them. "Nope, sorry. Been here a while too."

"He was supposed to be here. Damn him to Hel," Darcy muttered to himself, still glaring impotently around the sunlit kitchen.

"Why're you gunnin' for him?" Bucky still looked amused, and Darcy did her best to ignore his dropped g's, because she'd _always _had a weakness for them. They'd been almost the entire reason why she'd slept with Ian in the first place.

"He stole my last Boost." Bucky's furrowed in confusion, before quickly returning to their previously raised position of amusement.

"Oh, that drink you guys love so much." He sounded like he was only _just _keeping himself from laughing again, and Darcy frowned at that because Tony would have been _on the floor_. Bucky took a glass from the draining board and filled it with water from the tap. "Doesn't that shit taste like piss?"

"Natasha lied to you," Darcy replied, eyes narrowing at the insult to her babies.

"It was Steve, actually."

"Whoever." Darcy brushed away his explanation with a careless wave of the hand. "And it's _everything_." Bucky took a sip from his glass and then eyed her carefully, tapping his metal fingers against its surface. Darcy noted the odd colour of his eyes; they weren't quite blue, but neither were they green. They were more like a gorgeous bastard child of both colours.

A moment later, those _bluegreen_ eyes darted to the ceiling and Bucky said, "Okay." With that, he jumped up, leaping from the aisle to the cupboards across and back in the blink of an eye, and not even a half-second later, using the aisle surface as a springboard to cling to one of the squares set in the ceiling.

Darcy watched open-mouthed as he banged roughly on the square now directly above his head, before pushing it roughly to the side. His bare feet swung near her cheek for a brief moment, their nakedness and oddly delicate bones momentarily distracting her. Bucky wriggled up into the ceiling, all but his heels disappearing. There was a peculiar, yet familiar shout, the muffled sounds of a brief scuffle, and a few seconds later, Bucky's long legs reappeared as he descended, this time with a struggling towheaded man. Bucky landed surprisingly gracefully, while Clint came down with an 'oof' and the sound of his knee hitting the aisle surface. He had abandoned his combat boots somewhere between Darcy's floor and the common kitchen, his feet now bare, which would explain why she hadn't heard him sneaking his cowardly way in the above air vents.

Darcy's Boost was nowhere to be seen.

"Clint, you prick!" Darcy clenched her fists as the two men struggled. Clint tried to kick out at Bucky's legs, tried to gain his footing, but Bucky pushed him against the aisle and clamped his flesh hand down on the archer's neck. With a pained shriek (that Darcy would torment him about for as long as possible), Clint immediately stopped struggling.

"You ass," Darcy hissed as she took the opportunity to poke Clint _hard _in his pectorals. The archer flinched, trying to squirm away. Hard nipple pinches were next, she decided, flushed with success.

"Hey, Darce." Clint tried to play the innocent.

"Where's the lady's drink, Barton?" Bucky asked, looking as bored as if he just were cleaning his nails (which Darcy had actually seen him do at a recent Avengers &amp; Co. meeting), not holding one of the world's best assassins in a Vulcan death grip.

"I have no idea what –" Bucky's death grip visibly tightened and Clint let out a loud yelp. Darcy should really have recorded this. "Okay, okay!" Clint wriggled a bit as the Soldier smirked in satisfaction. Darcy gave her nemesis another hard poke, adding a hard nipple twist for a good measure. "Ow, you –"

"My Boost, Clint," Darcy reminded him, flicking his cheek with her fingernail.

"He has to let go first," Clint replied with a glare in Bucky's direction. Not looking even slightly bothered, Bucky relaxed his grip and Clint slithered away, reaching into his the large pocket of his cargo pants and reluctantly handing over _the precious (plural)_. "I hope it chokes you."

"_I _hope you sleep with one eye open," Darcy shot back, clutching the Boost to her chest. After one last glare, Clint jumped onto the aisle and sprang back up into the vent, quickly replacing the ceiling square.

Giddiness flooded Darcy at the cool feel of the Boost can against her chest, and she beamed at Bucky, who looked amused, if slightly confused. Shaking his head, he edged past her, his metal arm reflecting the sunlight into her eyes and giving him a fitting glow.

"Enjoy."

"Wait," Darcy blurted out. Bucky paused in his tracks and looked back, a brow raised. "Thanks."

"You'll owe me," he replied, but the amused twist of his lips seemed to imply otherwise. He moved to leave the kitchen, but Darcy started towards him, not quite sure what she planned to do, and he immediately stopped and turned to face her again.

"One sec." Darcy raised a finger, thought for a moment, and then reached into the nearest cupboard for a glass and poured half the Boost into it. She walked over to where Bucky still stood in the doorway and handed him the half-full glass.

"Spoils of war," she explained with a smile. His blue eyes stared into hers for a moment, before he took a small sip from the glass. He seemed to ponder its peculiar taste for a moment, before his wetted lips quirked up into a smile. Their poutiness had Darcy momentarily distracted. His mouth looked the sort that a girl could _really –_

"Thanks, doll." Bucky's suddenly Brooklyn-accented drawl would have had Darcy jumping guiltily if she'd been the kind that embarrassed easily. And when Darcy's eyes flickered back up to Bucky's, she realised that aside from their (presumed) shared love of Boost, their shamelessness was another quality they had in common.

…


End file.
